There are many ways people find their careers. Accident, choice or luck often plays a part, but in aviation, especially in the pilot community, passion is often the most significant initial factor.

The FAA shares that passion. With us today is Lynn Lunsford, one of our public affairs managers. He offered to fly me down here from Washington in his vintage 1938 Piper Cub, but I didn’t have two weeks to make the trip.

It’s fairly obvious where it all begins. I’ve heard stories of a kid at an air show, or simply standing outside an active airfield, face pressed against the boundary fence. They could be watching anything from the Thunderbirds to a Cessna doing touch- and-goes, but they all catch the same bug, a lifelong fever that’s incurable.

Once they show all the symptoms – such as continually looking up toward the sound of an engine, annoying disinterested people by explaining the differences between props and jets, and talking with their hands to describe their last adventure – the people in this room represent their next stop. Can anyone here even count the times they’ve heard the phrase, “I’ve always wanted to do this…”You are their true introduction to aviation

The job of an instructor with new pilots is to get their head out of the clouds, so they can fly safely in the clouds. While this goal hasn’t changed since the early days, the standards have dramatically improved.

An early pilot who transitioned from tactical ballooning to fixed wing in 1909 was U.S. Army Col. Frank Lahm. His instructor was a pilot with relatively few hours by the name of Wilbur Wright. Lahm described his instruction in detail: it was three hours of dual, followed by a solo, and soon after that, he was allowed to carry passengers.

Education has become a little more comprehensive since then, but the flight instructor is still the most important person in a pilot’s career. You nurse, encourage–sometimes cajole the best from your students–and they will never see you wince if their first solo landing bounces enough times to also count as their second and third.

You are page one of their flight logs, and however many pages and books they go through, you will always be judged by how well they do.

Times have changed since Col. Lahm completed his first solo. Pilots are better trained, airplanes are infinitely improved over the wing-warping biplanes of 1909, and the sky is a safer place to be…and yes, there are perhaps one or two more regulations.  

Not only is it safer, the aerospace industry is a critical national asset that contributes between 12 and 13 million jobs and $1.5 trillion to the economy. Aviation products constitute this country’s largest form of export.

Closer to home, although the number of pilots with active certification has slightly declined, you might be pleased to know that there are more qualified flight instructors than ever: more than 100,000 of you as of 2014. On the ground, non-pilot professions have also seen steady growth.

Our commercial air carriers move close to 750 million people a year, in a system that is safer than ever before.

But, there are still far too many incidents and fatalities in the General Aviation community, and we must continue to look for ways to reduce the numbers. Rarely does a week go by that we don’t have at least one fatal GA accident somewhere in the United States. We’re working with every aspect of the aviation industry to reduce risk in GA flights.

As flight instructors and flight school operators, you believe there is always room for improvement. It’s never too late to sharpen skills and learn new techniques. Although we have improved safety in the National Airspace System, we are always looking for new ways to reduce risk.

Toward this end, the FAA is moving away from the perception that we are solely a reactive regulatory enforcement agency. With industry partners, we have already started following the concept of Safety Based Systems as part of our Risk-Based Decision Making Initiative.

Although there will always be a place for the lessons learned following an incident, we want to find ways to prevent the first domino from falling. Risk-Based Decision Making is designed to identify, assess, and mitigate risk before the problem becomes an incident.

We find ourselves in a golden age of commercial aviation safety. Luck didn’t get us here; it was effort, determination and cooperation between every facet of aviation. We’ve eliminated most of the traditional causes of accidents, such as wind shear and controlled flight into terrain, and what’s left are those minor flaws or omissions that weren’t noticed or reported, and finally snowball into a tragic event.

While it is natural to assume that mistakes will happen in today’s complex aviation environment, the FAA’s Compliance Philosophy is designed to shine a light on these problems before they result in an incident. Our goal is first, to find and fix the problem, then learn from it and share the information to prevent a repeat occurrence.

To do this, we need trust and open communication between all aspects of the industry. Both companies and individuals must be willing to describe their honest mistakes, failures and procedural errors.

Both regulators and operators must understand the difference between accountability – which accepts responsibility and looks forward – and blame, which focuses on punishment for what’s already happened.  In such cases we use tools like training or documented improvements to procedures to remediate the problem.

Furthermore, employers must foster an environment that educates and expects employees to be proactive. With the creation of better procedures, employees feel more accountable and are better able to recognize and report potential problems.

The FAA is practicing what we preach. We’ve started the Compliance Philosophy education of all FAA employees with detailed “how-do-I-implement-it?” training for each Line of Business. For example, we want inspectors to use their judgment, experience, expertise and qualifications to identify risk, to work with the individual or operator, and to identify the most appropriate tools needed to permanently fix the problems.  

Additionally, inspections will continue, though now they are data driven and not date driven. Safety depends on compliance, so we do not tolerate people who intentionally ignore, deceive, or fail to comply with regulatory standards. We will deal with them as needed and apply enforcement as needed.

There is an adage that we all learn from our mistakes. I want us to learn from small mistakes to avoid having to learn from larger ones. We believe Compliance Philosophy is the evolutionary thinking we need to make flying even safer. 

While compliance is intended to prevent future incidents and foster trust, there are other ways to ensure safety. For example, we are rewriting our Part 23 regulations, which form the basis for certifying small aircraft.

We want to increase safety, certify more efficiently, and help industry reach the market with innovative techniques and products. In the past, we regulated the design of the product. In the future, we will define the safety parameters we wish to achieve, leaving industry free to approach product design to the best of their abilities

The rule change will be a major shift in regulatory philosophy, and the team is working overtime to get it done right.

Flight school has traditionally been the take off point for entering the NAS.  Unfortunately, this isn’t the case for the increasing number of new operators flying unmanned aircraft. The vast majority of these users have no concept of the NAS or how to safely operate within it, and this is becoming an ever-increasing safety problem. Despite this, we believe most incidents are a result of ignorance rather than malice.

Although the present regulation state drones should not be flown within 5 miles of an airport, we are seeing reports of UAS on short final to major airports, or at altitudes of thousands of feet – far higher than the 400 feet we currently advise.

Many UAS operators may be unaware of how common and how close airports can be. For example, apart from the airport we find ourselves at today, there are 11 other airstrips scattered around Hays County.

Two weeks ago, Secretary Foxx and I announced that the FAA is going to require operators to register their unmanned aircraft. Registration will instill a sense of accountability and responsibility in the operator. It gives us an opportunity to educate operators about airspace rules so they can use their UAS safely. And it will help us identify and take enforcement actions against people who don’t obey the rules or operate safely.

While we finalize our small UAS rule, we’re using our existing authority to accommodate requests for commercial operations. To date, we’ve approved more than 2,000 exemptions that allow unmanned aircraft to be used for things such as power line inspections and agriculture.

Under our Pathfinder program, we are working with industry to determine how to safely expand unmanned aircraft operations beyond the parameters of our proposed rule.

Education also plays a critical role. The FAA and its partners continue to conduct outreach through the Know Before You Fly and No Drone Zone campaigns, making users aware of where they can and cannot fly. And we’ve partnered with the San Francisco 49ers football team to produce a public service announcement that runs on the team’s scoreboard during home games. We are also beta testing a new smartphone app, “B4UFLY,” which will allow UAS operators to conveniently compare their location in relation to restricted airspace.

However, we realize that education and outreach are not always effective. Enforcement is always an option.

Last month, the FAA proposed a $1.9 million civil penalty against a company we allege knowingly conducted dozens of unauthorized flights over Chicago and New York. The message is clear: Operate within the law or we will take action.

We do not want to stifle innovation, but we are never going to compromise on safety. Working together with all interests, we’re confident we can balance both and ensure our airspace stays safe.

It’s often said one should never stop learning, and for those of you out there who are more seasoned instructors, change is just part of the industry. I’m sure some remember Loran, still enjoy VORs and are wondering when iPads became a mission-critical instrument. The students you are teaching will, of course, learn charts and dead reckoning, but they will also be the first NextGen generation.

Today we are seeing the results of NextGen. Last March we completed the En Route Automation Modernization, or ERAM, which is running in all 20 continental en route control centers.

With ADS-B, airmen have better situational awareness, a clear picture of the weather and other traffic. In 2014 we installed the last of 634 ground transceivers that are the foundation of ADS-B, and the technology has been installed in all but two en-route centers nationwide.

By 2019 your students going to commercial carriers should be enjoying the nationwide benefits of Data Comm systems for high-flying traffic. While here in 2015 we’ve already completed the first two phases in the upgrades of computers and displays used by TRACONs and control towers. Our Metroplex air traffic initiative is providing the benefits of scores of new satellite-based air traffic procedures that are helping to reduce fuel costs and CO2 emissions, by billions of dollars.

Despite generating future savings, these infrastructure investments come with a significant initial cost. The FAA is currently funded through March 2016, and has managed to weather short-term extensions, shut downs and sequestration. These actions make it difficult to calculate agency needs with the consistency and stability needed to serve this vital industry.

There has also been discussion about restructuring the FAA as part of the reauthorization. We are, of course, open to discussing the issue. But in our view, the most important problems reauthorization should fix are the unpredictability of the budget, and the lack of flexibility to execute our priorities.

Think how far aviation has come in a century. In 1929 an organ builder in New York designed and built the first flight simulator, the Link Trainer.  They put two stubby wings on it and it looked like the ride outside a supermarket… but it got the job done. Today we have full motion simulators and ridiculously realistic graphics, but I am sure Craig will agree there is always room for improvement, room for innovation.

We’re in an industry that always wants to do more, be better, faster, more efficient and more reliable. The FAA’s part in the equation is to keep the airspace system safe, but it is also a shared responsibility with everyone in this room and everyone in the industry. Working together, I believe the sky’s the limit.